15 Best Firefox Addons You Should Use

28 Jun 2017

Not so long ago, Chrome was the king of browsers. But slowly and steadily, Firefox has been gaining ground and soon it’ll be almost on par with Chrome, if not surpass it. But how do we make Firefox more awesome and productive?

The answer to the question lies in Firefox add-ons. With the right add-on in place, you can make this browser just about as cool as Google Chrome.

So, here are the 15 best Firefox add-ons that will help you work fast and smart.

1. Track the RAM: Tab Memory Usage

Tab Memory Usage is a fast and light tool to determine which tab is occupying how much space in the memory. And depending on the compiled information, it displays it neatly in the toolbar.

If you, like me, have a number of tabs open, it’s no surprise that Firefox would slow down. This add-on is used to determine which tab is slowing you down so that you can take appropriate action.

2. Awesome Grammar: Grammarly for Firefox

Grammarly is the perfect companion app for you if you want a little help in going over your posts or emails.

This awesome extension searches your written texts for typos and grammatical errors.

Not only does it help in pointing out errors, it also gives alternative suggestions and synonyms for words and phrases. Grammarly is free for Firefox and can be upgraded to the premium version to include additional features.

3. Maintain Notes and Clips: Evernote Web Clipper

The Evernote Web Clipper doesn’t just let you save posts and bookmarks, it also lets you transform a web page into a readable form and much more.

It’s incredibly easy to use and all you need to do is tap on the elephant icon on the toolbar and choose the right option. For annotations, grab a screenshot of the page and let your imagination run free.

4. Capture Scrolling Screenshots: FireShot

FireShot is the perfect add-on if you want to take screenshots of a long article or a Twitter timeline in a jiffy. Plus, it also does an incredible job of lining up the tools for image editing.

All you need to do is open the web page and click on the FireShot icon. The transition between the frames is seamless with no overlaps in between.

5. Save Offline and Sync: Save to Pocket

It’s not always practical to remember everything on the internet every single time. Save to Pocket is the handy add-on that lets you save links and pages.

It can be used to save everything from interesting articles to new stories. And when you want to recover the saved sites, just clip on the View List and all the saved links will be displayed.

6. Travel Back in Time: Session Manager

If you often work online, you must know the pain when web browsers crash. Not only you lose all the important work but it also breaks the line of thoughts. Quite a bummer, right?

The solution is in the form of Session Manager which helps to save sessions so that you can pick up right from where you left.

What’s more, it also provides the option to save sessions voluntarily and lets you arrange the saved sessions into groups.

7. Save Your Eyes: Night Mode Eye Guard

As the name suggests, it darkens the screen to suit your eyes better. Just head over to the toolbar and switch on the add-on.

What’s more, you can select the level of darkness you wish to have. Plus, you can also choose to set a timer so that it switches on automatically.

8. Manage Your Passwords: LastPass

Remember the time when you couldn’t recollect the password to your Gmail account, however hard you tried? Most of us face such situations daily and if you think about it, precious amount of time is lost in reclaiming the lost password.

LastPass is the ideal candidate that helps you out of such sticky situations, for it ‘remembers’ passwords of all your accounts.

Other than remembering passwords, LassPass can also save you from the trouble of filling out form details or remembering credit card numbers.

9. Manage Open Tabs: Tab Mix Plus

If the default Firefox settings aren’t enough for you, then consider trying out Tab Mix Plus. This add-on takes tab management to the next level. Whether it’s opening tabs next to the currently opened ones or navigating tabs in the most recently used order — it does it all.

Tab Mix Plus includes a diverse range of settings for you to explore, including mouse gestures or tabs features for new tabs.

10. Give Wikipedia a Makeover: Wikiwand

Thanks to thousands of well-researched articles, Wikipedia is one of the most used go-to websites. Be it for school research or for a quick fact check. Though the articles have changed with time, what has remained unchanged, over many years, is the UI.

If you’re bored of the old look of Wikipedia, it’s time you introduced yourself to Wikiwand. It comes packed with a neat interface with the main topics listed towards the left. What’s more, you can also get a preview of the link when you hover over it. Pretty neat, right?

11. Manage Distractions: LeechBlock

Time management is a special skill which only a few possess. For the rest, we have to defend ourselves from the onslaught of distractions. These distractions come in many forms like social media pages, Quora or funny cat videos.

If you want to get away from all the disturbances, turn to LeechBlock. It does an awesome job of protecting you from them.

It has a number of customizable options like when to block, who to block, where to redirect, etc. So the next time you open Facebook, LeechBlock will make sure that you turn back to work ASAP.

12. Shorten URL: Shortly URL Shortener

Nothing like an URL shortener right at the address bar, correct? Say Hi to Shortly URL Shortener. This add-on uses the bit.ly service to shorten URLs and once done, the URLs are copied automatically to the clipboard.

13. Enhance YouTube Experience: Magic Actions for YouTube™

So all you have to do is click on the Cinema mode to hide the distracting videos on the side panel, and you are done. If you ask me, my favorite feature is the ability to control the volume by scrolling the mouse wheel.

Depending on your bandwidth you can also set the desired resolution at which you want the YouTube video to stream.

14. Distraction-free Reading: Tranquility Reader

Want to have a Kindle-like experience on Firefox? The Tranquility Reader will help you in transforming web pages into simple readable form minus the advertises and images.

All you have to do is open a post or news article which you want to read and click on the T icon. The web page will be instantly transformed.

15. Get the Opera Look: Vertical Toolbar

If you have seen the revamped version of Opera, probably you must have fallen in love with its vertical sidebar. Worry not, you can easily get this same look on Firefox as well. All you have to do is get the Vertical Toolbar add-on.

Vertical Toolbar is entirely customizable and you can add your choice of tools to it. So if you’d like to have the icon for add-ons instead of Favorite, you can just drag and drop it. Right-click on the toolbar and head over to the customization.

Which One Will you Go For?

These were some of the coolest Firefox add-ons you can use to ramp up your browser experience. And trust me, once you start using them, it’d be very hard to let them go.

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Written By

An engineer turned tech writer, Namrata used to write software codes before turning to a career in tech- writing. She is passionate about travelling, food and reading about cool new stuff. Apart from that, she holds a bachelors degree in I.T and hails from Guwahati.